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Making your garage work harder
Keeping the garage clutter-free can be a difficult task, Darryl Church gives us expert advice and handy ideas to make sure we get it right.
Words Darryl Church (some additions by Refresh Renovations)
The definition of garage is a building for parking or storing one or more motor vehicles. Interesting then that vehicles are often parked outside of the garage because it’s full of everything else. So what are we Kiwis using our garages for?
Most families now own two cars, maybe a motorcycle, have either a trailer or a boat or both, plus bicycles, kayaks, a lawnmower, a workbench, a second fridge, or freezer or both, often a laundry is tucked into a corner, a cupboard for raincoats and gum-boots, kids' sports gear, golf clubs, maybe the fishing rods hanging from the ceiling and basically anything else that is no longer needed inside the house. It’s no wonder there is isn’t any room to fit the cars.
When considering the dimensional requirements of your garage, you need to make a list of all the items you plan to store in the garage in addition to the vehicles. A standard garage of around six metres by six metres is quite adequate to park two cars. If you plan to fit anything else and want to exit the car without doing the shimmy between bikes and mowers, then you need to start expanding the dimensions. These parameters will determine lengths and widths of space, the stud height (the dimension between floor and ceiling) and the widths and heights of the garage door.
The trend for smaller section sizes often leaves the designer with little choice but to build houses hard to setback lines, leaving little or no access to the rear of the house. A simple solution is to allow for a single garage door at the rear of the garage. You can store the boat, caravan or trailer in a secure service court at the back of the garage. The location of the laundry in the garage is still a very popular space saving choice, but you will soon curse a poorly planned space if you have to reverse the car out every time you want to do the washing.
What else could go in the garage that you never thought of? Central vacuum systems are often located in the garage and they can take up more space than you think. Under-floor heating control panels, meter boards and security keypads. The garage may be used as a games room. Foosball, ping-pong and eight-ball tables can often be folded away or leaned against the wall. If you have a roof cavity, you can install an attic access type ladder, lay some support flooring across truss bottom chords and this becomes a useful space to hide some of those lightweight boxes of junk. Be careful to not overload this roof cavity. Roof cavity access via a hatch is a Building Code requirement and the garage is often the least obtrusive space to fit an access hatch.
Storage
As with other areas of your home, storage is an important consideration in the garage. While keeping the car, bike, sports equipment, tools and the list goes on, in the garage seems like common sense, how are you going to do this? Shelves, cupboards, boxes, hanging rails or simply piles on the floor? Make a list of the items that will definitely be kept in the garage and think about how often each one will be used. Things like the garden hose, lawn mower and ladder might need to be more readily accessible than the kids' bikes which get used once a year when they come home for holidays.
Make your garage work harder
Cubic Capacity is a flexible system which enables you to create a unique installation for your space. Cubic Capacity is for storing your tools, for work or play, and about creating space to work with them. A combination of cabinets and bench work space maximises your garage storage space and maximizes your time by having everything at hand.
Cubic Capacity is about storage and work space. Units can be purchased as ready to assemble packs or if you like, you can order pre-assembled units and Cubic Capacity can have them ready for you within days.
Innovative Design
For those wanting to use the garage to store and display their 'toys' this design by Wanganui Architectural Designer Marg Robinson gives some food for thought. "The homeowners wanted a functional garage with design appeal; the challenge was that it needed to store a Jaguar collection! The trussed roof gave the opportunity to raise the ceiling to accommodate a hoist, which led to providing another parking space, as well as improved access for vehicle maintenance."
Materials
Flooring in garages is predominantly concrete and most often left natural. For ease of cleaning some choose to paint the floor with a pavement paint. Others will choose an exterior grade carpet. Tiling is uncommon but suitable as a garage flooring. Check first that the tiles are suitable for a car loading. The days of unlined garage walls and ceilings are a thing of the past. More often than not, walls now require linings for bracing. A lined wall and ceiling stopped and painted is much tidier and cleaner. Dense timber linings like Plywood or particle board sheet offer a tougher surface.
Garage Doors
Although there is a great deal of design options available for garage doors, the most common types are as follows. Tilting doors, where the complete door panel tilts and raises near the ceiling of the garage. Sectional doors, where the door is split into hinged horizontal sections and the door lifts and turns, section by section, at the door head to finish near the ceiling, and roller doors, where the door, made of a flexible material, rolls away near the head of the opening. All options have advantages and disadvantages.
Tilting doors offer the design effect of a single plane or element, but they do kick out as they open and this could potentially cause an issue if a vehicle is parked too close. Roller doors, by nature of having to roll up, are limited to a corrugated profile of metal. Roller doors have the advantage of being able to work on large sized openings, which is why they are commonly used in industrial situations.
Because tilting and sectional doors are constructed with a steel sub-frame to which an external cladding is fixed, they offer the most flexibility for external material types and designs. These can range from solid panelled timber, pressed pre-coated metal, plywood and battens, fully glazed or incorporating glazed panels with another material. The use of tilting doors is becoming less popular as technologies advance in sectional door options.
All of the above door options can be either manual or automation controlled to open and close. Automated doors are the most common and also the most functional. These are controlled by a button on the wall and from a remote which can be used from the comfort of your car.
Tom's garage is a clear example of how out of control this part of the home can get! Original garage design by Tom's son, Architectural Designer Bob Jackson
These white epoxy coated steel shelves by Elfa can be repositioned as needed as only the top hang track is attached to the wall. Swedish designed and built for optimum performance. For these and other great organisational ideas for the garage and home visit www.hsw.co.nz
To Suit the style of your home, there are a range of profiles available for your garage door.
A custom designed aluminium panel sectional door for Ashby Baker Architectural Ltd.
Cedar sectional door from Garador.
Somerset sectional door from Dominator.
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The team at Refresh Renovations will be happy to help you with all stages of your renovation project, including design, build and project management. Click here for a Refresh team member to contact you about a free no-obligation consultation to discuss options for renovating your home.